National Investigations Committee On Aerial Phenomena

The National Investigations Committee On Aerial Phenomena (or NICAP) was a civilian unidentified flying object research group active in the United States from the 1950's to the 1980's.

Related Topics:
Unidentified flying object - United States

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Due in no small part to financial ineptitde among the group?s directors, NICAP faced collapse many times in its existence, barring a few years in the 1960?s when the organization's membership spiked dramatically.

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Despite these internal troubles, NICAP probably had the most visibility of any civilian American UFO group, and arguably had the most mainstream respectability; Jerome Clark writes that "for many middle-class Americans and others interested in UFOs but repelled by ufology?s fringe aspects, it served as a sober forum for UFO reporting, inquiry, investigation, and speculation." (Clark, 412) Furthermore bringing a measure of respectability to many observers was the presence of several prominent military officials as members of NICAP.

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Throuoght its existence, NICAP argued that there was an organized governmental cover up of UFO evidence. NICAP also pushed for governmental hearings regarding UFOs, to at best limited and occasional success.

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